eftpos Looks to Disability Orgs to Donate $1million

A Not for Profit organisation working in the area of disability is likely to be chosen as the beneficiary of a $1million donation from electronic funds transfer company, eftpos Australia, after an enormous community response.

eftpos says it was inundated with some 43,000 votes after it announced its intention to donate $1 million dollars to charity and calling on Australians to nominate which worthy cause should receive the donation two weeks ago.

But eftpos Managing Director Bruce Mansfield says disability was the clear winner after a big swing in the last days of voting via Facebook and their website.

“Disability delivered a convincing 30% of the vote or 12,299 votes. This was followed in second place for a charity helping disadvantaged families and children with 8500 votes.

And Pro Bono Australia readers had a great influence on the decision.

An eftpos spokesman says Pro Bono Australia readers provided additional feedback through the website introducing them to charities they had not spoken to previously and they have been invited to provide further details.

“We had an incredible response from the readers of Pro Bono Australia News,” eftpos Managing Director Bruce Mansfield said.

“It has been wonderful to witness the passion that people have for their charities and causes. There are so many worthy causes, we now have to make the final decision. The outcomes of this survey will be an important input in that process.” 

However, the incredible response means that eftpos will take until the second week in August to go through the applications and make a decision.

"The decision will be based on the outcome of this survey and a number of other considerations," Mansfield said.

Last year, Australians encouraged eftpos to donate $1 million to the Salvos for a number of their community programs across Australia.

Almost 6 million eftpos transactions are made each day, comprising $285 million in purchases and $40 million in cash out. In 2011, Australian consumers performed more than 2.1 billion eftpos transactions worth $131 billion at 325,000 merchants, using 750,000 eftpos terminals.